Nigeria\u2019s digital economy will struggle to reach its potential unless internet players coordinate efforts to localise content and expand interconnection, industry executives warned at the Africa Peering and Interconnection Forum in Lagos.\n<\/p>\n
The call came from leaders of the Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria, Rack Centre, Equinix, Open Access Data Centres, Meta, Airtel Africa, and Digital Realty. They said the growth of data centres and subsea cables has not yet translated into nationwide benefits.\n<\/p>\n
The 15th AfPIF was co-hosted by IXPN, Rack Centre, and AF-CIX.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cNigeria is Africa\u2019s most populous country, with a youthful population hungry for content,\u201d Meta\u2019s Edge Strategy Manager, Ben Ryall, said at the recent event. \u201c<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a clear split between enterprise users and content-hungry youth that creates real space for local content delivery networks and new caching strategies,\u201d he added.\n<\/p>\n
The economics remain uneven. While transit in Lagos can cost $1 per megabit per second, costs in other regions still hover around $30, leaving users outside the commercial capital facing poor speeds and higher prices.\n<\/p>\n
IXPN Chief Executive Muhammed Rudman recalled how long it took to attract global streamers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe reached out to Netflix in 2007. They didn\u2019t see the return on investment. Today they\u2019ve landed traffic in Lagos thanks to subsea capacity, but the pricing outside Lagos is still a barrier,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n
Rudman added that caching in Lagos alone doesn\u2019t solve the latency problem: \u201cUsers in Kano still suffer.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Open Access Data Centres CEO, Dr. Ayotunde Coker, called for localised business models.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cAfrica\u2019s informal economy thrives on sachet pricing. If we offer daily or weekly access, we\u2019ll meet users where they are,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n
Coker also emphasised that colocation providers are evolving: \u201cWe\u2019re not just building racks; we are building ecosystems. Our Kinshasa facility was designed to enable peering from day one.\u201d <\/p>\n
Fibre fragility was flagged as another threat. Nigeria experienced 13,000 fibre cuts in just 18 months. MTN operates more than 25,000 kilometres of fibre, while the government targets 90,000 km.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s triple the fibre, triple the risk,\u201d Rudman warned. He also urged mobile network operators to begin peering outside Lagos to extend the benefits of interconnection nationwide.<\/p>\n
During a related panel on data centres, Rack Centre CEO Lars Johannisson noted that interconnection is the missing link.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need more IXPs and better ecosystems. You can\u2019t localise traffic without it,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n
\u00a0Equinix West Africa Managing Director Wole Abu agreed: \u201cEveryone wants to follow the money, and right now, the demand for data is skyrocketing.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Africa\u2019s data centre boom was framed as not just an infrastructure story but also a policy and ecosystem imperative.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hold 18 per cent of the global population but just four per cent of global GDP. To close the digital gap, we must close the prosperity gap,\u201d Dr Coker said.\n<\/p>\n
He welcomed regulatory progress such as tax incentives and clearer licensing but said hyperscale investment must be matched with improved local interconnection and carrier-neutral platforms.\n<\/p>\n
An executive of Africa Data Centres, Dr Krish Ranganath, affirmed the region\u2019s readiness for AI workloads: \u201cThe new facilities being built here are Tier III and IV, global standard, and AI-ready.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Ikechukwu Nnamani of Digital Realty cautioned that challenges remain.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a classic chicken-and-egg. The ecosystem won\u2019t scale until the investment comes, and the investment won\u2019t come until the ecosystem matures,\u201d he mentioned.\n<\/p>\n
The panellists said the future of content delivery, AI readiness, and digital competitiveness in Nigeria depends not just on megawatts and fibre miles but on trust, co-investment, and alignment across the digital stack.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nigeria\u2019s digital economy will struggle to reach its potential unless internet players coordinate efforts to localise content and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":90612,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[1638,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-90611","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-internet","8":"tag-internet","9":"tag-technology","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}